


Silence

by Htmellx



Series: JeanMarco Fics [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shingeki no Kyojin Setting, Angst, Cw food issues, Domestic, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Family Loss, France (Country), Français | French, French Jean Kirstein, French-Speaking Jean Kirstein, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Overdose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:07:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28525938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Htmellx/pseuds/Htmellx
Summary: The silence is deafening. The kitchen is empty, and Jean won’t talk, or eat. Marco can sense that things are about to get very hard again.
Relationships: Marco Bodt/Jean Kirschtien, Marco Bott & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott/ Jean Kirstein/ Levi Ackerman, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein
Series: JeanMarco Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089503
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hi, haven’t written fics in a while. I guess this could be an extension of Mon Sucre, but it isn’t really the same type of theme.  
> Set in 2020, sort of isolation/Covid vibes but it’s not really explicitly stated. A lot of nostalgic memories/flashbacks. Grieving and hopefully healing.

Jean hasn’t really spoken since they received the news four days ago. 

The only communication comes in the forms of short nods and shrugs, muttered curses under his breath. Marco is trying his best not to break down as well, he can’t help but tear up as he hears Jean’s muffled sobs through the guest room door. 

At first it had been noise. Screaming and cursing, delicate plates smashing on the hardwood, rapid fire, raging French on the phone, a broken mirror and then quiet. 

Just quiet. 

Marco knows that Jean needs space but still has his therapist on speed dial, he how’s that it can go bad. It’s going there. 

No humming or laughter, no guitar in the mornings, classes cancelled. 

There is a pile of cups just inside the door, keeping Marco from entering, only allowing him to crack the door to pass through tea and water. Marco begs Jean to eat the food he brings to him but the blonde barely touches it. Marco has tried to cook things that he knows Jean loves but the kitchen isn’t the same without him and it’s not like Jean is eating much at all.He takes a bite or two, some of the bread, and then places the still full plate outside the door when he hears Marco walk away. 

The silence is overbearing and it just makes Marco want to cry. He could barely understand Jean on the phone with his cousin and only knows it’s fatal news about his grandmother. 

The one who taught Jean how to cook, how to sew and sing. Took him in, and his older sister for the few years until they turned 18. She was a landing place for Jean’s sister, Laure, between the times and before the needle took her for good.

After Jean’s initial outburst, Marco had spent the night putting his grand mother’sstoneware and cups she’d sent them for their anniversary in the backs of high up shelves. Marco busied himself with cleaning, domestic noises. He dusted twice and swept the floors, picked up the pictures, the frames that Jean had thrown and stowed them in drawers. 

Marco had met her a handful of times.

At their university graduation, when he and Jean were still only friends. He’d waved hi, and she smiled and then whispered something to Jean that made him turn bright red and grin at Marco before he’d left. 

Over two years ago, when Jean surprised him with an impromptu trip in the summer after Marco had finished up his residency. A ticket sent in the mail, a bouquet of flowers, and a promise of a beautiful adventure for his first time in France. 

Marco got to see the house Jean always talked about, a full rendering of the small sketches Marco would doodle out for Jean, listening to his nostalgic memories half in French and English. A visual representation of Marco’s understanding.

In a small village, far from the town, only the weekly market and small boulangerie. Expansive fields, farmland and flowers.Marco with his limited French, relied on Jean to translate, but he didn’t mind; he loved watching them interact. The cadence of their speech and their smiles, the rhythm of their knives on the wooden cutting board, small gestures of love and care. It was where Jean spent summer and winter breaks as a young child, it was an understanding between them, and Marco knew, it is-was the essence of his home.

Then, last Christmas, he’d been invited to the family gathering in Quebec, by Jean’s grandmother. With Laure gone, and most of the cousins in Quebec, Jean had been terrified. He’d wanted to fly to France and accompany his grandmother on the flight to Canada but she’d convinced him just to coordinate their flights to the same airport instead. 

The taxi ride to his uncle’s house was filled with Jean reassuring Marco that if he didn’t feel comfortable they’d get an Airbnb, Jean with his brow furrowed explaining hurriedly in French that this side of the family was not kind, but his grandmother just waved her hands. “Je le sais c’était le père de ta mère qui a les élevé. Il était complètement fou, oui, je vous jure qu’ils vont mourir s’ils vous menacent, mon petit. Je vous protègerai.” She’d reached over Jean’s lap and squeezed Marco’s hand tightly, “It sera okay, Marco,” she’d said to him, her accent thick and unsure of the English words. 

As worried as Jean had been, it had made him grin and settle in his seat, and Marco thanked her in French, sincerely. 

Marco knew what he was walking into, with Jean only being out to his grandmother, being aware of the rumors and harsh tones he’d heard all the times he was seen walking by on video calls between Jean and his family. He was prepared however, because of his own family’s reaction.

Jean’s grandmother had defended them after a cold greeting and quick words by one of the uncles when they’d seen the couple holding hands. After a short bit of Québécoise and French shouting, that Jean later translated for Marco, Jean’s grand mother had seemed satisfied and brought Marco around and introduced him to the cousins, as well as the great grandchildren. Marco had been able to speak with her more, to look at pictures she’d taken with her ipad of photo albums from her home, of Jean as a little boy all limbs and thick hair. At the start of each summer album he was pale and thin, eyes haunted, sometimes bruised. And then by août, she told Marco, he would be smiling and living; tanned and strong. 

One of those pictures, she’d sent to Jean on his birthday earlier this year, a message scrawled on the back, mildly illegible due to the shakes in her hand. Marco picks up the frame from the bookshelf, one of the few Jean had missed in his rampage. A smiling little boy clutching his grandmothers hand, a trowel in the other, in front of the little village house, in black and white. 

Marco thinks to draw it, sometime in the future but knows it will be long before he can show it to Jean. Marco knows that the next few months are not going to be easy, especially with the anniversary of Jean’ssister’s death and the holidays, the continued isolation. There are no adventures he can run off on, to escape reality, nor the possibility of traveling to be with family and mourn. But Marco knows by the earlier conversation that Jean is not pleased or interested in being around his Canadian family. In fact, Marco thought he’d heard threats, knew he’d heard curses but he still doesn’t have the full story. 

Just silence. 

He just knows that Jean is like him now, without immediate family and grandparents. 

All Marco wants to do is hold him and tell him it will be alright, but as Jean had explained after Laure’s passing; the brunette knows he has to back off or risk Jean running off again. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco gets Jean to talk about what happened with his grandmother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw: More covid-related talk, death of a loved one, homophobia, brief mention of a past abusive relationship

Day 8:

“Jean.”  


The tapping on the door makes the line of cups rattle against one another. The blonde shakes his head against his knees and lifts his hands curled in the sleeves of his sweater over his ears. 

“Je suis désolé mimi,” he whispers to himself, to the ceiling. He inhales, his nose blocked, he coughs, “je vous ai déçue, je peux pas...” he starts to cry again.

Marco knocks again, the cups rattle, Jean sobs- the noise stops. 

There’s a thud as Marco drops to his knees by the barely cracked door. He doesn’t look in, just at his hands in his lap, as he changes position, sitting crosslegged with his head resting on the doorframe, dark hair in his eyes. 

“Jean please, talk to me. I saw, Sylvie tagged some of the other cousins, they posted about...” Marco’s breath catches and he hears Jean sharply inhale, a muttered  _ tabernacle _ , and he hits the bed behind him, Marco wipes at his eyes.

“Mon cœur,” Jean stiffens as Marco speaks, he can hear the tears, the way his voice changes in the back of his throat.Jean removes his trembling hands from his ears and instead, digs his fingers in his hair, pulling tightly. The blonde tries to exhale but his breath catches; another sob. 

Marco wipes his eyes, not looking up, one hand squeezing the other. “M-mon cœur,” he starts again, “il faut que tu comprennes que je sache ce que tu te sens, je sais que ce n’estpas la même connexion que tu as. Mais, moi-même je me suis senti cette angoisse mon cœur. Jean tu peux pas te laisser, elle a vous dite de jamais t’abandonner, c’est pas?”

“Ferme ta gueule, hein!?” Jean looks up at the ceiling, the tears rolling down his cheeks and down his neck. “Rien Marco j’en ai rein.” Jean takes a deep breath, “Rien!” He shouts, his foot kicking out and hitting the mugs, he lets out another sob, putting his face back in his hands, shoulders shaking. Jean knows what Marco is saying, what his grandmother really wanted for him, but right now it is all simply too much.

Marco doesn’t know what to say. Jean is his everything, his heart, and they’ve openly talked about these feelings, yet he can’t take Jean’s anger at him, but he knows how grief swallows everything. 

“He, uh, they t-took it all,” Jean says in English, his voice breaking. “Bastien, Michel, et je pense que Laurence aussi.” 

“Les oncles,” Marco breathes out. He looks up and sees Jean’s fingers, gripping at the hair at his temples, eyes shut, sunken from lack of sleep, and chapped lips. Marco puts his hand on the door, the cups rattle, Jean looks up through his hair at the ring on Marco’s finger. His grandmothers, modified of course, the stones reset in a subtle band. But, whenever Marco gets nervous he spins it around so the sharp stones can settle against his skin, leaving slight ridged marks in its wake. 

“Vraiment, tourne-la, mon sucre.” Jean makes a hand gesture to Marco prompting him to turn the ring around. 

Marco let’s out a sigh at the pet name. He knows that he’s overreacting with his own, as well as Jean’s grief. That he’s scared of their mortality and the same deep sense of separation and loss from before. “I’m so sorry Jean. We both know that that’s not sufficient but I’m very, very sorry.” Marco sniffles again and rubs his eyes. “I’ll call up Yægs and we’ll go rob them,” Marco says quietly, Jean let’s out humorless laughter, and shakes his head. 

“I’m not ready for this to be happening, Marco. I don’t know how to do this again.” Jean crosses his arms around himself and meets Marco’s eyes. “J’en sais rien. Je peux pa-pas,” Jean tries to take deep breaths but breaks on the exhale. 

“They are cutting contact, they’ve already divided the farm. Laure’s room, mimi’s work, the animals all to be liquidées, c’est un rêve de merde.” Jean looks away instead at all the glass cups and mugs, fait à la main, in front of him. Marco sees his fingers twitch.

“L’atelier et les oiseaux ils sont perdues aux sacrés cons.” Jean shakes his head, jaw clenched. “I should have fucking been there Marco, l’a convaincue de venir ici quand même.” Jean starts to sob and punches the bed again, turning his body away from Marco. 

Marco keeps his eyes low but watches as Jean’s chest begins to heave. “I don’t care about the items, I don’t care. But I fucking told Bastien not to go visit her after being in l’Écosse but he fucking did it!” Jean screams again and Marco looks away and bites down on his lip to hold back a gasp.He hears Jean take deep breaths, and then, he listens as Jean explains. 

* * *

All of the family except for Jean, knew that his uncle, Bastien, was still travelling to France after working internationally even with all the warnings, he had his diplomatic responsibilities that he’d always boasted about and une famille chrétienne, like god intended that he took with him.

Marco was the one that had informed Jean about his cousin’s  posts in his grandmothers village eight days ago. Jean hadn’t been able to reach his uncle, or his cousin, who promptly blocked Marco on all social media. By the fourth day, the day that Jean had found out the whole story,the day he stopped speaking; was when Bastien told him that they’d been there for a week and were about to leave in the morning, when they’d had to go to the pharmacie. They were recommended immediately to go to the hospital, to travel again. That fourth day, when Bastien finally called and returned Jean’s messages, unanswered on his grandmother’s iPad, with the news that she was gone. That the documents would be sent to him regarding his own personal items left on the property. And the tax laws regarding his inheritance, and that of his mother and sister.

* * *

  
“And then he said that he is over pretending appeasing his mother for the sake of his dead sister’s fée son and junkie dead daughter.” Jean laughs again, through his sobs and Marco tries not to flinch. “They are going to bury her against her wishes, and I am not invited... that I am f-finally o-out.” Jean still won’t look at Marco. Can’t. There is a metallic taste in his mouth and his head hurts so much. He wants to fucking break the cups in his hands and crush the shards between his fingers. Jean wants Marco to stop caring about him and let him sit, alone and still, because anything else makes him want to rage. 

He doesn’t even get to say goodbye, to hold a part of her, to add her to the ash mix like she’d wanted. The years of her life’s work to be discarded to brocantes and marchés de puces by her distant sons. 

“They don’t even care for her last wishes Marco.” Jean wipes his sleeves roughly over his eyes. “How fucking cruel?” Jean’s leg bounces, up and down his heel thudding down on the hardwood floor. “We cannot even fly to retrieve anything, even if we were welcome. We cannot risk the village as Bastien did.”

Marco’s lips part before he exhales out, “I really could call Levi-” 

To which Jean quickly replies, “Non! Absolutely not. That is not something I’d ask from you, mon sucre. Marco!” Jean’s snaps his fingers to get the brunette to look up at him. “Please do not do that.”  There is a twinge of fear, a rush that’s different than the rage but still a type of angst that makes Jean’s fingers clench. 

Marco nods, this time not returning Jean’s gaze. He knows that Levi favored Jean, and yet Marco can excuse the hell that he himself endured by Levi’s hand, for Jean. Levi spends half his time in Paris and half in San Francisco doing international estate law and settling disputes, and Marco knows he’s been disgustingly busy this year. He knows Levi’s cutting blue eyes would asses the circumstances and set it to order, put it right and and demand it be followed to the letter.  
But Marco doesn’t want to upset Jean too much, push him back into silence, so he nods again and forces a light smile and looks up at Jean.

The blondes eyebrows furrow and his red ringed eyes narrow. “I’m sorry I told you to shut the fuck up. I know you were just being kind, my love.” Jean wipes under his eyes as Marco shrugs. 

“It was a little pushy,” Marco puts his hand through the crack of the door fingers outstretched to Jean. “Please help me make some food, I know it’s terrible when I try, and then we c-can take a bath af-after, maybe?” 

Jean knows what Marco is asking of him, caring for her last wishes. Caring for him, even when grief and anger have made him lash out and retreat. Jean has heard Marco trying all week in the kitchen, the sounds of him repetitively cleaning, starting to hum and then stopping himself, quietly tiptoeing, pausing by the door and leaving tea and hot meals. All of which Jean could barely stomach, couldn’t begin to want because of the emptiness inside of him. Yet, his grandmother saw what Marco was for him, and approved, told him to be fulfilled in life and love, to be sweet with him even in the echos of their own losses. She had been the one to give her ring to him, to skip over her oldest son’s children, after they’d buried Laure, just the two of them in the village cemetery next to his mother, her only daughter. She knew that he could understand what Jean had to face, even if he didn’t know it yet. 

Jean reaches his hand out to connect with Marco’s and exhales. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts, feelings, questions, French corrections lol?  
> (Or tags I’ve left out!)

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t really have a set direction for this maybe flashbacks of their time in France? More fluff? Or to develop on this sad arc? I’m not sure!  
> Let me know any thoughts or suggestions in the comments,


End file.
